Artist Sees Red

After Boca Pulls

Work Off Exhibit

BOCA RATON — It's censorship, says Lee Goldberg, 70, an artist from Tamarac whose surreal painting of two women was removed from an exhibit in City Hall.

City officials stashed the painting in an office, safe from view.

The reason: breasts.

"Two exposed breasts," said Mickey Gomez, deputy director of Parks and Recreation. The department administers the city's Art in Public Places program.

"We don't want to upset people, and people in the past have been upset by this type of painting," he said. "Yes, we're trying to stay on the safe side."

Goldberg, a member of local, regional and state art organizations, is steamed. She flatly denies the painting is, as city officials describe it, a seminude.

"Women have breasts. I paint the men with flatter chests," she said. "How do you indicate it's a woman without breasts?''

Goldberg said she carefully screened her paintings before selecting which she would exhibit in City Hall as part of the Art in Public Places program. She was careful, she said, because she knew city officials, who do not screen the exhibits, could remove any art work deemed "inappropriate."

"I, as a person with good taste, would never put anything in a public place that people would not want to see," she said. "They picked on a painting they shouldn't have."